Hatching the Natural Way

It’s spring in Maine and the chick days are in full swing. In past years we’ve purchased rare breed pullets or eggs from small breeders and hatched them in an incubator but this year we decided to let the broody hens do the work.We were raising a few chicks for a family member. Just 2-3 you see. But how to know how many would hatch?So I started collecting eggs from a few of our favorites. One of our ‘packing peanut’ hens was very broody. ‘Packing Peanuts’ are sent with a small order of rare breed birds to keep everyone warm on the trip.Several hens were stuffing their eggs under her – sensing that she would be a good mother. Although I marked each egg with an X, I neglected to mark them with a date on this first run. So I could tell when new eggs were laid beneath Mummy Bird, but I couldn’t keep track of how old the older ones were. Big mistake. She ended up with 10 eggs underneath her, but for the first week I found 2 broken every day and then other hens stuffed new ones beneath her. So, the number stayed constant despite the broken eggs but how could I tell when they were laid? The green eggs looked the same, except for the size, and so did the others. Finally, the breaking stopped and she had a full 10 – no more new ones, but no broken ones either.For 21 days she sat on the eggs getting up for @ 30 minutes each day to stretch her legs, poop, eat & drink out in the run with the other birds. I had to lift her up every day and check the eggs. Not really recommended, but because I didn’t know the true date of the egg being laid I was trying to tell when they would hatch. Mummy Bird puffed up her feathers and growled each time I approached. She did this to anyone, bird or human, who approached.Finally, one day when I entered the coop, I thought I could hear a faint peeping. When I checked the eggs there was a small crack in one and when I held it up to my ear, sure enough, I could definitely hear a chick chirping. It took 2 days but it finally appeared under the hen. She was very proud. Then another egg had a crack and in succession, abut a day apart, there were 4 chicks under her. I nailed a cat food can to the side wall of the nesting box with water and Mummy Bird taught them how to drink. I poured small quantities of chick feed by her side and she called them out from under her and they listened and she taught them to eat.All the while that she made the baby talk to her chicks, one of our roosters, Penguin, gazed up at her in the nesting box high above, in a trance. He understood and was fascinated with her baby talk. He reacted and made funny little noises.The nesting box was 3 feet off the floor of the cop and the babies were getting dangerously close to the edge of the box to peer over the edge. First my husband nailed a ridge board across the opening and then he built a wide ramp to the floor. The next night she had carried all the chicks down the ramp under her wings to the floor to have them eat and drink out of the food and water dishes, but other hens, curious about the new babies, appeared dangerously close.Mummy Bird was nervous. So that evening I moved her and her babies to their own house and run. Luckily, and with some foresight, I had set up a dog house purchased in a previous season at a local supply store, up on blocks with a heat lamp and filled with fresh shavings, clean water and food. I loaded the chicks and unhatched eggs into a clean, empty box and carried them and laid them gently into the fresh shavings. My husband carried Mummy Bird and put her in the maternity Ward. She looked around, seemed pleased and relieved and then quickly settled in, gathering her chicks and eggs under her.Four more days went by with no more hatches. I thought I’d remove 2 eggs at a time from under her and give them to Broody #2, so that Mummy Bird could focus on raising chicks. When I picked one of them up I thought I could hear a faint chirping. So I quickly put it back under her and the next day there was a small crack in it. The hole had grown bigger by that evening and then, a day later, a new Cuckoo Bluebar chick was under her.